Senate Candidate JD Vance Delivers Closing Keynote at Postliberal Catholic Conference at Franciscan University, Tells Integralist Scholars 'I've Admired a Lot of You from Afar'

On October 7–8, 2022, then-Senate candidate JD Vance delivered the closing keynote address — titled “Learning from Steubenville” — at the “Restoring a Nation: The Common Good in the American Tradition” conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. The conference was organized by Sohrab Ahmari, publisher of Compact magazine, under the auspices of the Franciscan University Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life and the Bonum Commune Foundation. It was sold out and drew international attention. Speaking before the assembled leadership of the postliberal Catholic intellectual movement approximately one month before his Senate election, Vance told fellow speakers he had “admired a lot of you from afar” as “some of the people who I think are most interesting about what’s going on in this country.”

What Happened / Key Facts

The “Restoring a Nation” conference was explicitly framed as a critique of “the liberal agenda, with its promises of equal opportunity and an endless array of lifestyle choices,” which speakers argued had “plunged working- and middle-class people into job and health insecurity.” The conference drew its intellectual framework from what organizers described as the “triple foundations of the West”: Greek Philosophy, Christian Religion, and Roman Law — a framework for wedding Catholic social teaching to political activism.

The speaker roster was a who’s-who of the Catholic postliberal and integralist intellectual lane: Patrick Deneen (Notre Dame, author of Why Liberalism Failed), Adrian Vermeule (Harvard Law, common-good constitutionalism), R.R. Reno (First Things editor), Scott Hahn (Franciscan University theologian), Chad Pecknold (Catholic University of America), Matthew Schmitz (Compact co-founder), Josh Hammer (Newsweek opinion editor), and Gladden Pappin (American Conservative). Rachel Bovard (Conservative Partnership Institute) connected the intellectual circuit to the Capitol Hill operational infrastructure.

Vance was the conference’s final speaker, speaking “with the authority of one who may be soon actively involved in the policy decisions of our nation” (per the Irish Rover account of the event). He addressed life on the campaign trail, the importance of building institutions and raising money for a post-liberal political movement, and the “ruling class” that he described as corrupt and despising working-class people. His address ended in “several extended standing ovations.”

His address title, “Learning from Steubenville,” invoked Steubenville’s de-industrialized working-class history as a template — “lessons of decline and restoration that can’t be taught in D.C., New York, or Chicago” — to frame the conference’s intellectual project in terms of electoral-political necessity rather than merely academic theorizing.

Why This Event Matters

This appearance is documentary proof of pre-VP deliberate courtship of the Catholic-integralist track in its own venue and vocabulary. Vance did not speak at a generic conservative conference alongside a handful of religious figures. He delivered the closing keynote — the position of highest honor — at a conference where every other speaker was drawn from the Catholic postliberal and integralist intellectual lane. His statement that he had “admired a lot of you from afar” positions him as a self-identified student of this intellectual movement, not an outsider seeking coalition.

Vance was still a Senate candidate at this point — elected one month later on November 8, 2022. His appearance confirms that the Catholic-integralist track courtship preceded his elevation to the Senate, predating by two years the VP nomination and the “studied distance” from Project 2025 that characterized the 2024 campaign.

The conference’s institutional infrastructure — organized by Ahmari (Compact), hosted by Franciscan University’s Veritas Center, and supported by Bonum Commune Foundation — represents the same Catholic-postliberal substrate documented in opus-dei-thiel-vance-catholic-institutional-pipeline. Vermeule’s presence connects directly to the common-good constitutionalism theoretical lane; Reno’s presence connects to First Things as the flagship Catholic-intellectual publishing venue; Deneen’s presence connects to the flagship post-liberal philosophical text.

Broader Context

The “Restoring a Nation” conference occupied the same intellectual space as the NatCon conferences but was explicitly Catholic and post-liberal rather than the broader nationalist-conservative coalition the Edmund Burke Foundation convenes. Sohrab Ahmari had recently co-founded Compact magazine (2022) as a deliberate home for critics of liberalism from left and right, with Catholic social teaching as the economic-thought anchor. The Steubenville conference predated Ahmari’s 2024 move to UnHerd as US editor.

Franciscan University of Steubenville is an orthodox Catholic university and a hub of the renewal of Catholic social teaching in conservative politics. Scott Hahn, one of the conference’s anchoring speakers, is one of the most prominent figures in orthodox Catholic intellectual life. The venue itself signaled the conference’s target audience — orthodox Catholics invested in the integralist-postliberal project, not generic Christian conservatives.

Research Gaps

• Audio or video recording of Vance’s “Learning from Steubenville” address would allow verbatim quote extraction; confirmed sold-out attendance suggests recording may exist
• Rachel Bovard (Conservative Partnership Institute) connection to Bonum Commune Foundation / conference organizing infrastructure not yet traced
• Whether Vance and Vermeule had any documented private conversation during or after the conference

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